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Japan fishermen take cover to slaughter dolphins in face of Western criticism
Reuters
January 21, 2014, 9:51 pm
Dolphins are seen at a cove in Taiji, western Japan, January 21, 2014. Japanese fishermen drove a large group of dolphins into the shallows and killed at least 30 on Tuesday, hiding themselves behind a tarpaulin, as the annual dolphin hunt that sparked protest in the West entered its final stages. Every year the fishermen of Taiji, in western Wakayama prefecture, drive hundreds of dolphins into a cove, select some for sale to marine parks, release some and kill the rest for meat. REUTERS/Adrian Mylne
By Ruairidh Villar
TAIJI, Japan (Reuters) - Japanese fishermen drove a large group of dolphins into the shallows on Tuesday and, hiding from reporters and TV cameras behind a tarpaulin, killed at least 30 as the annual dolphin hunt that sparked protest in the West entered its final stages.
Both the U.S. and British ambassadors to Japan have strongly criticised the "drive killings" of dolphins citing the "terrible suffering" inflicted on the marine mammals.
Every year the fishermen of Taiji, in western Wakayama prefecture, drive hundreds of dolphins into a cove, select some for sale to marine parks, release some and kill the rest for meat.
On Tuesday, at least 30 dolphins out of the group of more than 200 held in the cove since Friday were herded by boat engines and nets into a killing area of the Taiji cove.
Fishermen waiting in the shallow waters by the shore, some in wet suits with snorkelling masks on their faces, wrestled the dolphins into submission and tied their tails with ropes to stop them from escaping.
Before the killing began, fishermen pulled a tarpaulin in front of the cove to prevent activists and reporters from seeing the killing. A large pool of blood seeped under the tarpaulin and spread across the cove.
"A metal rod was stabbed into their spinal cord, where they were left to bleed out, suffocate and die. After a traumatic four days held captive in the killing cove, they experienced violent captive selection, being separated from their family, and then eventually were killed today," Sea Shepherd Conservation Society activist Melissa Sehgal told Reuters.
The annual hunt has long been a source of controversy and was the topic of "The Cove", an Oscar-winning documentary that brought Taiji into the international spotlight.
Activists say that out of this year's group more than 50 dolphins were driven away to be sold to aquariums. Those not killed on Tuesday were released, they said.
"UK opposes all forms of dolphin and porpoise drives; they cause terrible suffering. We regularly raise (the issue) with Japan," said the British Ambassador to Japan, Timothy Hitchens, in a tweet on Monday. Caroline Kennedy, the U.S. envoy to Tokyo, has also said she was "deeply concerned" about the hunt.
Japan maintains that killing dolphins is not banned under any international treaty and that the animals are not endangered.
Yoshinobu Nisaka, the governor of Wakayama prefecture where Taiji is located, rejected Kennedy's concerns.
"Dietary culture varies and it is the wisdom of civilization to mutually respect other standpoints unless the world faces a lack of resources," Nisaka was quoted by Kyodo news agency as telling reporters.
The Taiji fishing union rejected Reuters requests for comment.
The dolphin hunting season runs yearly from September to March. Sea Shepherd said around 600 marine mammals had been killed this season before Tuesday's slaughter.
Monitoring is difficult, with fishermen erecting tarpaulins over their killing area and blocking access to the cove.
(Writing and additional reporting by Antoni Slodkowski; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Tokyo (AFP) - The Japanese widow of John Lennon on Monday added her voice to pleas to dolphin fishermen that they stop their hunt, days after the US ambassador to Tokyo waded into the row.
Yoko Ono published an open letter to the men of Taiji, the small town made famous by the Oscar-winning film "The Cove" which depicts the annual bloodbath, in which she urged them to halt the cull for the "future of Japan".
Ono said the hunt, in which scores of animals are corralled into a cove, with the prettiest selected for sale to aquariums and the rest butchered for meat, was damaging the reputation of Japan.
It "will give an excuse for big countries and their children in China, India and Russia to speak ill of Japan," she wrote.
"I am sure that it is not easy, but please consider the safety of the future of Japan, surrounded by many powerful countries which are always looking for the chance to weaken the power of our country.
"At this very politically sensitive time, (the hunt) will make the children of the world hate the Japanese.
"For many, many years and decades we have worked hard to receive true understanding of the Japanese from the world," she said.
"But what we enjoy now, can be destroyed literally in one day. I beg of you to consider our precarious situation after the nuclear disaster (which could very well affect the rest of the world, as well)."
The reference was to the 2011 triple meltdowns at Fukushima after their reactors were swamped by a huge tsunami.
The letter, which was posted on her "Imagine Peace" website and addressed to "Japanese fishermen of Taiji", bore her signature and was dated 20 January, 2014. At the foot, it said: "cc Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe".
Ono's intervention came just days after US ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy tweeted her disapproval.
"Deeply concerned by inhumaneness of drive hunt dolphin killing. USG (US Government) opposes drive hunt fisheries," wrote Kennedy, the only surviving child of assassinated US President John F Kennedy, on January 17.
Her comments were welcomed on Monday by fugitive eco-activist Paul Watson, who said he hoped it would help convince Tokyo to put a halt to the practice.
"Hopefully this would put additional pressure to convince the Japanese government that this really has no place in the 21st century," he said.
Watson, who is the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, is now in the United States where he arrived last year saying he wanted to challenge a court injunction.
Japanese authorities are seeking his extradition and describe methods used by Watson's Sea Shepherd group against whaling ships -- for example blocking the boats' propellers -- as "terrorist" acts.
Watson was arrested in May last year in Frankfurt on a warrant from Costa Rica, where he is wanted on charges stemming from a high-seas confrontation over shark finning in 2002.
The Canadian-born activist fled from Germany but arrived in California on October 28, more than a year later.
Sea Shepherd says around 250 dolphins have been corralled in the cove so far, and that some have been removed, but it is not clear how many have been killed.
